Harriet Beecher Stowe

Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; Harriet Beecher Stowe

Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrate, The bird of dawning singeth all night long. And then, they say, no evil spirit walks; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm, -- So hallowed and so gracious is the time. And this holy time, so hallowed and so gracious, was settling down over the great roaring, rattling, seething life-world of New York in the good year 1875.